Benjamin Wachs: The voice of the people in public comment

Tuesday

Nov 30, 2010 at 12:01 AM

Public comment has become kabuki theater. Government has public comment because it must, not because anyone listens. People come to city council meetings to demand something to be done about the president, to spout absurd conspiracy theories while they are carrying old grudges.

Benjamin Wachs

Democracy was preserved — in a small way — last week when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned a Philadelphia rule forbidding public comment at regular City Council meetings.

This is a good thing, I guess, but as a regular observer of government meetings across the country, it’s easy to sympathize with the Philadelphia City Council on this one. In many larger cities, public comment has become kabuki theater. Government has public comment because it must, not because anyone listens.

Shouldn’t a government listen to the people who take the time to come before it and speak? Absolutely. But often the people who take the time to come before government and speak are ignorant, angry and disorganized. They come to city council meetings to demand something to be done about the president; they spout absurd conspiracy theories; and they are carrying old grudges.

Even if they understand the issues, they tend to be screaming and furious. Even if they’re not screaming and furious, they’re often the same people who came to have their say last time — and the time before that.

On those few occasions when someone new does get up to make a calm, informed and reasonable case, they’re usually damned by association. It’s not fair, but in places where public comment is where all the angry, crazy, ignorant people go to talk, there’s an assumption that anyone who gets up to speak must be angry, crazy and ignorant.

Nor does this communication problem go just one way. I have rarely ever seen a person at public comment be convinced otherwise by a reasonable answer given by a public official. Officials are almost never heeded when they try to explain that you can’t lower taxes without cutting spending, or raise services without raising money, or the law of unintended consequences, or that not everything was President Bush’s fault.

Worse, many decisions are made before the meeting even happens; and you’ll notice that none of the people that politicians do listen to — lobbyists, key fundraisers and powerbrokers — show up to speak at public meetings. It’s ineffective.

Which is to say that, while the Philadelphia City Council was out of line, it’s hard to see how public comment is really essential to democracy if it’s a charade.

So how does a member of the public with an issue get heard? Here, for what it’s worth, is my advice — based on some 15 years of reporting at the local level — on what to do you if you want to effectively communicate your views to your elected official:

• Don’t complain on your own; get a group together who are all of like minds.

• Make an appointment to see them in their office well before the vote. Be polite about organizing.

• Arrive with a group of your supporters, but designate only one or two people to actually talk. The rest are there to show that the issue is important to many people and not to repeat the same points over and over again.

• Explain your issue clearly, concisely and politely. Indicate that this is an issue that you and your group will vote on (turning you into single-issue voters) and that you’ll contribute to and campaign for whichever candidate is best on your issue in the next election.

• Write polite but strongly worded letters to the editor.

• If you attend a public meeting, only speak if the candidate supports your position — and then say “thank you” and praise the official.

• Whether they support your issue or not, follow through afterwards, either by actively supporting them or actively supporting their opponent.

• Finally, don’t do this too often. Politicians are most likely to listen to both the people who support them regularly and the people they almost never hear from. Anyone else usually becomes noise.

Is this how democracy is supposed to work? Not really, but the lobbyists that the public is up against don’t care how democracy is supposed to work.

While the public’s right to talk isn’t going away, shouting after a decision has already been made behind closed doors isn’t effective.

Benjamin Wachs writes for Messenger Post Media's print and online editions. Read his work at www.TheWachsGallery.com.

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